I think that's the idea, that the Māori Party would partner with whoever is the majority party in a Government - beyond left and right, representing Māori. Uncertain if they can actually pull that off as a tactic though.

ACTCan David Seymour revive the party in an electoral sense, and is he relying on peeling off soft National voters to do so?

(Admittedly this is based on the data for one election back) If your voters like National more than your own political party, and the majority of your voters from the previous election remember themselves as voting for National, then you are not a political party with genuine support. You are a National backed strategic voting initiative.

The Māori Party only has one electorate. If they lose that, they’re not in Parliament.

But the Māori Party can retain the Waiariki electorate while losing so much of its share of the list vote that it does not qualify for an additional list seat, thereby remaining in Parliament while being reduced to a one seat party (in the same way ACT and United Future have been).

I'm a primary school teacher Ian, not a researcher or politico - my homework currently is devising multiplication problem solving questions, working out the national standards for the 6 year olds in my class and getting through Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou (one chapter before bedtime)

I'll give my reckons on this later though, and that's an absolute promise.

Coming up at some point soon, for example, is the whole water rights debate around Iwi and the Treaty and what 'ownership' means and how any such Iwi ownership will be recognised by the government, if at all.

How ACT, Labour, National, NZF and the Maori Party choose to answer those questions will obviously affect many of these questions.

Could be the Maori Party walks from the coalition. Could be Labour shoots its Maori voters in the back and itself in the foot. Could be the National supports its Maori party ally and ACT and National pick up votes from National's core. Could be something else.

National have some reasonable communicators, but nobody up to Key's standard. The Bill English puff piece in the Herald at the weekend emphasised his boringness (plus he's been there, done that, taken the 20%), Judith is too easily riled. Much like when Auntie Helen left, it'll reveal that the trick to good leadership is to ensure your lieutenants are perfect examples of the Peter Principle. That's not to say there isn't talent there, it's just not ready for the big job.

If Key wins next year, I reckon he'll take a twelve month victory lap to rack up his decade and be gone the end of 2018. If Key loses next year, he'll be gone next year.

There are some odd things going on in politics at the moment. Sanders in the US has somehow (god knows how for such an old white guy) captured the imagination of a group of voters who can't be arsed answering poll questions but are actually getting out to vote for him.

Auckland city has two strong youth lobby groups who are both competent and active. If either group (let alone both) stood behind a group of candidates there is every chance the whole makeup of our largest city's council could utterly change.

Consider what happens to the national stage if somehow the youth vote is engaged - I don't think any of the current parties (yes including The Greens) have any traction with the youth vote.

I really do wonder what happens if they vote and if one group can give them something for which they really want to vote.

As for your questionsNational under Collins or Joyce is much less appealingThe Maori party ceases to exist and gets replaced by the new Maori partyAct remains as scapegoat for extreme National policyLabour undergoes 3 more leadership changes before the next election and diesThe Greens campaign on alternative health care and promote policy by astrology

It will be in National's interest, as well as Maori Party's, if just a few months before the election they have a parting of the ways. The Maori Party will have a little more cred that they are not National stooges, which could increase their parliamentary representation. The National Party would be able, if they need coalition partners after the election, to make 'concessions' to bring the Maori Party back to the top table. Their stance on zero-hours contracts show how this could work.Listening to Marama Fox lately, I'm picking she's the one charged with setting up this narrative over the next year. And John Key has the choice of election date to consider - look at how he used the early date last time to such effect, especially on Labour with its then-new leadership.

Will the Chinese economy avoid a banking collapse / FX crunch / rioting and if not, how will NZ parties cope with a new normal of bank failures, negative equity, zero demand for milk and a property crash?

Dunne is MP for the most white-bread part of the Wellington region. I think his constituency knows to vote for him over National and National know not to try to hard.

Harawira lost because Labour regarded keeping fat Germans out of NZ politics as more important than denying Key a clear majority.

Mana won't come back under current conditions, but if those conditions change (see above) and Labour / Greens fail to offer an alternative to austerity, then a Syriza/Podemos type party will fill the gap (unless TPTB just ban them).

Playing the politician's game of not answering your questions but asking/answering mine instead, I'd suggest there's a continuing gap on the conservative right. A succession of failures (Christian Coalition 1996, Dunne's brief expansion of caucus post-2002, Colin Craig etc) but the voters are still out there - see any online forum or talkback. One of Key's political achievements has been to keep them in his column while ignoring their causes (smacking law, Treaty, gay marriage). They jump up and down in anger and then ... vote National. (Although flag-waving Winston keeps some on board).

Absent Key, will they find a more favourable leader? Or will they start yet another project, doing God's work for Godzone? Preferably with 4.9% of the vote ...

Time isnt on our side at present. As for your questions...well... short termish seems to me. Our present way of organising ourselves is a rod we have created for our own backs, and its breaking us. We cant carry on like this squabbling, pushing our multitudinous individual agendas as if they are an end in themselves. But everyone putting aside their differences and consciously working on altering the course and direction of not only our societies but of our species is just too big an ask, because presently we are incapable of it.That may change I dont know, but not as long as we are locked into party politics

I think that any poll of the general public will suffer from limited knowledge. Many people would only be able to name English as a potential leader, because they don't actually know any other National MPs.

The framing of the question makes a huge difference. Was it an open-ended question, or was it a list of selected nominees? In the latter case, the list would presumably be drawn up based on name recognition, e.g. a count of media references within the preceding year. (It might also be informative to add a complete outsider, e.g. some inoffensive Labour backbencher, to check the limitations of name recognition.)

Also, the question is a hypothetical, so the answer is not guaranteed to be meaningful. A lot could change as soon as some other candidate is introduced as a potential new leader. Would anyone have named John Key as a preferred leader in 2005?